In high speed printers with ink ribbons arrangements are known for raising and lowering the ribbon by means of a complex arrangement consisting of a raise and a lower magnet, a friction clutch, a cam disc, a cam follower, and a number of levers, in order to enable the reading of the last printed text.
In another known arrangement (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,005), the ink ribbon follows a path adjacent the paper only at the actual printing point. In this arrangement, the spools must follow the movement of the printing device along the recording medium. This results in the disadvantage that the printer must be relatively slow due to the inertia of the large movable mass.
The object of the invention is to provide a simpler, more reliable, and improved device for vertical adjustment of the ribbon. At the same time, the device of the invention is constructed so that printing lines extend obliquely across the ribbon, resulting in the important advantage that the ribbon is utilized more effectively and therefore needs changing more seldom.
According to the invention, these objects are achieved by arranging the spools and the ribbon guides in one unit, this unit being pivotable around a shaft extending perpendicularly to the path of movement of the printing device.